NFL Blitz [Review]

Robert Emerson

Contributor

January 13th, 2012

NFL Blitz is back at it again giving more fire to the people than an angry phoenix. While bringing back the illegal hits and tackles, its also brought us some nostalgia. Like NBA Jam, Blitz has always been the game for people who have never been able to get into traditional sports games such as Madden. It gave us the excitement that others just weren’t doing for us. With their bone shattering tackles and late hits, you just might need a new pair of pants.

EA has recently purchased the rights for NFL Blitz and kept everything that people have enjoyed about it intact with an exception or two. All of the Blitz games have been known for their late hits and bone shattering tackles, however, in this new addition there are no more late hits. Once the whistle is blown, the play is officially dead–a seasoned veteran would pick up on this difference immediately. The rest of the game is pretty familiar.

For those who have been living under a rock since birth, the game-play of the entire Blitz series has been like no other. It has brought to the gaming community something where real sports buffs and game buffs could really sit around and talk about. The basic concept of the game is this: it takes a football game (like Madden) and takes away a lot of the rules, adds turbo boost, and gives players extreme strength. The game is really fast paced and also really short. Every game lasts 10 minutes, but still gives you enough time to have fun. Just like in NBA Jam, you have the ability to achieve “On Fire mode,” which is where you receive unlimited turbo for a brief period of time. To achieve this, you just have to sack the offense’s quarterback.

EA did a good job on the modes used in this game. They have provided, for offline players, a Gauntlet mode which pits you against League teams and Fantasy teams–including a final boss. The match up board literally is the same as Mortal Kombat’s character tower so it’s pretty easy to imagine. Every time you beat the mode, you unlock a fantasy team for you to use at your own discretion. Who loves Fantasy Teams? Living, breathing, people love fantasy teams! That’s who! Thank god EA has given us some pretty fun teams to play around with–each team is given their own unique outrageous stats and cool look. They have teams such as pirates, ninjas, and zombies. I, for one,am a Ninja fan, so I’m just going to say why would you need any other teams?

The Blitz Shop, just like we see in NBA Jam, allows you to purchase Fantasy Teams and outfits for the players instead of working hard for all of the perks. You pay for everything using points that you gain from playing online games.

The controls of the game were sort of a letdown at first. It was quite upsetting to see how they set up the default controls. Once you snap the ball, you then have control of your quarterback giving you the time needed to send out a pass. The downside is that you control both your QB’s movements and who you’re throwing the ball to using your left stick. It sometimes makes the game really hard to play out situations where you go to throw the ball to the opposite side that you’re running to. Thankfully, when you go to your control option menu, they let you fix that problem by mapping out your throws more and giving the game a far better feel. I don’t even know why they would set something up like that.

One of the announcers given to us is no other than the legendary Tim Kitzrow–the announcer from all of the NBA Jam series, with co-announcer Brian Haley. To be honest, I think Kitzrow is the freaking man, but when it came down to Blitz, it seemed like he wasn’t even the same person. The only thing that felt like him was his epic voice. Other then that, a lot of his lines were not that great and when I did hear a good one, it wasn’t as good as I expected. The amount of lines that they have though are enough to where you will rarely hear any repeats out of about 4-6 games. They did a good job there (I guess) even though it’s still lacking in flavor. They should have put more effort into that because that ,to me, was a big let down. For me, Kitzrow made NBA Jam amazing and now he does nothing for Blitz.

Overall, NFLBlitz is definitely worth your time and money. The game-play is still arcade-worthy in my book. It’s a great game still, even though late hits are gone and Kitzrow isn’t at his peak. It’s definitely a game that is great to play with friends with all the trash talking. I give it a thumbs up.

NFL Blitz

EA Tiburon

Score

4\5

Visuals

4

The graphics for this downloadable game very crisp and clean.

Sound

4.5

The sound of the game is pretty darn good and still gives it that arcade feel.

Controls

3.5

The default controls are really shaky and rough, but they make up for it with an alternate button layouts.

Game Play

4

The gameplay is great and you will definitely enjoy the experience, but taking away the late hits and dramatic tackles kind of brought it down a notch.

Fun

4

Blitz is an overall fun game even with the changes. After I changed the control layout, I had a blast.